Tag Archives: Increasingly larger numbers

Not that I posted about it at all or anything, but I partook in NaNoWriMo. I say “partook” because I finished back on 24. November. I’ve written on and off since, with Thanksgiving being my only full day off, but none of my days have been much more than 600 words.

NaNo, for me, is both a great month and a terrible month. Often times my competitive and obsessive natures take over and turn the month into a long, dark, maddening thirty days that constantly threaten to force me into the hateful arms of depression. It can be very damaging to my social life and to my self-esteem.

But I get a LOT of fucking work done. A lot. 50,000 words isn’t enough for anything I’m writing but it essentially meant I doubled the length of the Sun-King sequel in 24 days. That means it is about 2/3rds the way through.

Is it worth it?

That’s where I’m not so sure.

The last time I did NaNo was back in 2012, the year we moved to Detroit. Since then, while I try to write a lot all year round, I never gave any special attention to November. 2014’s November was mostly a dead month waiting on first readers to get back to me with their feedback.

This is quite possibly the last time I do NaNo. It will certainly be a while before I consider doing it again.

It’s a big reason why I wasn’t here much. I didn’t even open the page between October and a few nights ago (when I was scrambling to make sure my email servers were working – they are thankfully).

So, on top of NaNoWriMo, I will also be attempting to do LEXEMBER. I’m sure you’re all extremely excited.

Lexember, for the uninitiated (i.e. everyone), is a month-long challenge for conlangers to invent and then post a new word for their conlang.

Since scrapping my work on Hadysh earlier this year, I’ve started anew. You can find me talking on /r/conlangs in the 5 minute challenges. Hadysh has new life, an “official” transcription, and a lot more. I’ve really enjoyed bringing it back to life so hopefully for the linguistically-minded of all you out there, you’ll also enjoy a month of vocab and some chatting about how and why languages are so fantastically strange.

I’m on page 457 out of 565 of the manuscript (no clue what it is in book form) but we can guestimate that it is about 95,000 words in give or take. The last chapters are action-packed so their word density is probably lower.

Just did an actual calculation when I realized the manuscript was still open:

Guess – 94,764

Actual – 94,839

The law of averages is pretty amazing sometimes, eh?

Anyway, I am winding down. Had to work double-time today because I was busy all last night. I want to be wrapped up by the end of the weekend and get the new draft into the hands of first readers. At this rate, I should make it with plenty of time left. It was looking iffy for a while. These last few chapters must have been written with a wee drop of whiskey in me because there was a lot that needed fixing.

But it is fixed and I still managed 42 pages tonight. I’ve usually only been doing 15 to 30 on weekdays so today was surprisingly quick for having so much work to do. I don’t think there are any “bad” chapters left to get through, especially not after the whole rewrite that I made a huge deal about.

Tonight I wrapped up the Mark III draft of my first novel: Sun-King. Over the next while I’ll probably talk some shop, talk some soccer, talk some life, and whatever.

But there are some other things that need to get done. First, I’m glad to have my life back. This last month I’ve done almost literally nothing but write. I think I played D&D twice and Minecraft twice. I’ve skipped out on a lot of stuff that I might have otherwise enjoyed so, probably not going to do that again any time soon.

Friday through Sunday, Brigid and I will be at ConFusion in Dearborn, Michigan. Brigid will have some copies of her books and be giving panels and I’ll be wandering around.

After that, over the next month, I’ll do my line edits and get the novel to my “first” readers. After that, more editing, though hopefully less, and then copy editing.

I know I’ve already essentially made this post but a lot of this need reiterating for my own purposes rather than yours.

Once things move along I’ll probably post some tid bits here for you guys to enjoy.

I’m heading down the final stretch of this first total re-write of my first book. Today was another 10k day. I think by next weekend this will be wrapped up.

So where do we go from here?

Well, first, you’ll stop getting these vile daily word counts. That was mostly an accountability thing and now that it is done. I got my rewrite done in far less time then I suspected.

Next, I’m going to take a few days off.

Third, after those few days I am going to reread the whole thing again and make line edits for character voice and motivation. This will hopefully bring some consistency to everything. One of the weakest points of the original run is it took over a year and my opinion and vision for the characters changed greatly during that period.

Fourth, I will have to figure out the map. The book needs a map, so I’ll have to design a B&W version for print. That’ll suck up a weekend easily.

Fifth, once the map is done and added to the manuscript it will go back out to two of my original first readers and then potentially a third fresh first reader. The point is that the two will see that I properly address their major concerns and the new one will make sure the surprises and such still work with this new (hopefully better) version.

Sixth. Copy editing.

Seventh, either get the book into the hands of publishers or move to self publishing. Still leaning toward self publishing, we’ll see how the con goes if I make any contacts who can sell me on traditional publishing.

Eighth, book 2 bitches! That has been sitting for a long time, and a lot of things have changed, so now it is time to get back to that. Probably start from scratch again, but full of all sorts of enthusiasm. Steps seven and eight will happen in parallel.

Ninth, get published one way or another and see all you guys at some cons and some signings. I cannot wait to get out there and sign books and talk to people. I’m looking forward to panels more than I can express.

So that’s that, motherfuckers! Not too many word count posts left, hope they didn’t ruin your lives too much. This has been very exciting for me if you couldn’t tell. Glad to have gotten this far.

Again the change in the word count is rather low, but the quality of work is hopefully up. I am actually rewriting the majority of this chapter from scratch and in such a way that it essentially completely reverses the existing mood and outcome. So I can’t take as much from what’s there.

But this should be better for the story, get rid of some false drama that wasn’t terribly interesting to begin with, so the fat is trimmed and things are looking better!

That’s more than 10,000 words in a single day. Hell. Like a three-quarters day. But I am done for today. I might be done for tomorrow too, we shall see.

Since December 20th I’ve been on holiday, a long break away from my work and the things that happen there. A new year is starting and I am both nervous and excited to get started. However, when the break started I told myself if all possible I’d work through the break on my book. Work on getting it to function better and read better and in general just be better.

I think I’ve done that. I think I’ve been largely successful.

I also managed to kick the habit of wasting too much of my free time on video games. Don’t get me wrong, I love video games. I’m not trying to remove them from my life, but they are great at distracting me from my goals. Sometimes that is a good thing. Sometimes I need a break.

In these two weeks I’ve only briefly played Minecraft and it was always with Brigid and only after I had met word targets.

But now that the break is over, I am planning on not pushing myself quite so hard with the writing. The lion’s share has been put to paper and no one can say that I slacked off this break. 77,000 words in 19 days. Its going to take a while to beat that!

Much better. Good jump up. Hit a period of easy coasting and minor changes. Replaced that rough chapter again so today started with a loss of nearly 3,000 words. I like to think that the final version is the best, but we shall see.

Some rough patches ahead, so we shall see how it goes. But I am over half-way complete with my rewriting! And not a moment too soon, Monday shall see me return to the real world after an amazing few weeks to work on my book.